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Really must say "damn".
I ordered a plant weeeeks ago and it finally arrived, dead (not "this plant has been in the post for two days" dead, "this plant hadn't been watered for a week before it was packed" dead. I've given it lots of water but with no expectation of success.) They couldn't send out a replacement until July, and no guarantee as to when in July (don't any of their customers go on holiday?) They cheerfully refunded me, but what do I do with the empty pot it was going to go in, eh?
The jasminoides cutting that had survived the winter (yay!) but not put out growth at all (boo!) did bring out a new leaf a couple of weeks ago (yay!) but is now yellowing along the veins of *all* its leaves (boo!)
I've left the brand-new book I was halfway through on the bus. The suspense! Can Lee overcome his fear of publicity and ask Tony out? Will the new PA last longer than the previous one? How many demons can one half-trained wizard get rid of?
There's a fly in the office that will neither fly out the open door nor land so I can kill it.
It's hot already and seems like it will be for most of the month. Blerg.
I have little to say about seeing Dylan Moran or the One Man Star Wars show; both of them were a)enjoyable and b)just as you'd expect them to be if you've seen them before. But I do have notes from nipping down to see At Last! The 1981 Show last weekend. Here are a couple of reviews from real news sources; here are . So this was a bunch of people who were on the tiny alternative cabaret circuit in 1981, being non-sexist, non-racist and experimental; in a few months some of them were going to start getting on TV, first in a two-episode show produced by a young Paul Jackson, called Boom Boom Out Go The Lights, which showed their live acts, and then either as stars or with bit-parts in The Comic Strip films and The Young Ones. Stewart Lee was a young comedy fan in 1981, and would have given his back teeth to see them live; he asked them to come and do an evening at the Royal Festival Hall, using Paul Jackson's address book. And it was great. There were so many people I'd known I'd never get to see... and there they were.
French and Saunders, Mayall and Edmondson, and Peter Richardson weren't there, but TBH I was fine with that- it made it a bit less predictable.
Nigel Planer did his ac-TOR character, Nicholas Craig, to open the show, and Arthur Smith compered the first bit, starting with a late-70s style wig but quickly getting fed up with it. I was thrilled to see The Oblivion Boys (Steve Frost and Mark Arden), being much more flail-y than in their cameos on The Young Ones. They argued about splitting up and all of each others' later projects being crap, and Mark Arden was keen to point out to his kids in the audience that he didn't smoke. ("What are you talking about, that's why we were called the Oblivion Boys!" "No, no, I never smoked.") Norman Lovett was excellent, with a lot of small props in his pockets- I liked the 13-amp fuse, the referee's kazoo and the shower-cap jellyfish.
Alexei Sayle genially compered the second part, admitting to being a bit nervous due to not having done comedy for a while, mostly chatting but bringing out the odd killer line. Lenin and his translator ranted against the bourgeois breakfast, muesli. Pauline Melville was another person I was really glad to have the chance to see as she's not doing standup any more; her Edie character did some 1980s satire that flowed effortlessly into modern equivalents (the Bin Laden-Jesus comparison had bite). Arnold Brown was a treat, and the Greatest Show on Legs were very odd. As well as the famous balloon dance, they had an Anglo-French mime competition that I liked. (Spoiler: The French guy lost to a technicality and a kicking- "He's not miming, that's real pain!") And Neil the Folksinger (Planer again) ended the section. The songs were as bad as they needed to be, and the book of heckle put-downs was fun (*riffles through frantically* "Ah, yes. Ahem. 'Fuck off.'"). I think my favourite line was "Let's all sit in rows and ruin Neil's evening."
Stewart compered the final part. "This is where the system breaks down, as I wasn't a comic in 1981. Never mind." He did a bit of the library routine, and talked about what the alternative comedy scene meant to him ("It was seeing these guys that first made me want to curate an arts event.") Kevin McAleer's Owls slideshow was the only part of the evening where I really was helpless with laughter. Indescribable and amazing. (Clint Eastwood kangaroo!) John Cooper Clarke's poems were as expected, and the mostly-Japanese group Frank Chicken were a suitably bewildering finale, especially when the other acts came back on for the final song; let's just say that they weren't as tight on the actions as the actual backing group. Then Stewart brought Paul Jackson on to get a round of applause, the final final finale was a man with a firework up his bottom, and out we went tired but happy.
Oh yes, I've forgotten the chap balancing bullets on a block of ice in the interval...
TL;DR: alternative comedy eee! Will they ever bring out Boom Boom on DVD?
Liking the new series of Horrible Histories. Yesterday's had "genealogist Sir Francis Guesswork."
The jasminoides cutting that had survived the winter (yay!) but not put out growth at all (boo!) did bring out a new leaf a couple of weeks ago (yay!) but is now yellowing along the veins of *all* its leaves (boo!)
I've left the brand-new book I was halfway through on the bus. The suspense! Can Lee overcome his fear of publicity and ask Tony out? Will the new PA last longer than the previous one? How many demons can one half-trained wizard get rid of?
There's a fly in the office that will neither fly out the open door nor land so I can kill it.
It's hot already and seems like it will be for most of the month. Blerg.
I have little to say about seeing Dylan Moran or the One Man Star Wars show; both of them were a)enjoyable and b)just as you'd expect them to be if you've seen them before. But I do have notes from nipping down to see At Last! The 1981 Show last weekend. Here are a couple of reviews from real news sources; here are . So this was a bunch of people who were on the tiny alternative cabaret circuit in 1981, being non-sexist, non-racist and experimental; in a few months some of them were going to start getting on TV, first in a two-episode show produced by a young Paul Jackson, called Boom Boom Out Go The Lights, which showed their live acts, and then either as stars or with bit-parts in The Comic Strip films and The Young Ones. Stewart Lee was a young comedy fan in 1981, and would have given his back teeth to see them live; he asked them to come and do an evening at the Royal Festival Hall, using Paul Jackson's address book. And it was great. There were so many people I'd known I'd never get to see... and there they were.
French and Saunders, Mayall and Edmondson, and Peter Richardson weren't there, but TBH I was fine with that- it made it a bit less predictable.
Nigel Planer did his ac-TOR character, Nicholas Craig, to open the show, and Arthur Smith compered the first bit, starting with a late-70s style wig but quickly getting fed up with it. I was thrilled to see The Oblivion Boys (Steve Frost and Mark Arden), being much more flail-y than in their cameos on The Young Ones. They argued about splitting up and all of each others' later projects being crap, and Mark Arden was keen to point out to his kids in the audience that he didn't smoke. ("What are you talking about, that's why we were called the Oblivion Boys!" "No, no, I never smoked.") Norman Lovett was excellent, with a lot of small props in his pockets- I liked the 13-amp fuse, the referee's kazoo and the shower-cap jellyfish.
Alexei Sayle genially compered the second part, admitting to being a bit nervous due to not having done comedy for a while, mostly chatting but bringing out the odd killer line. Lenin and his translator ranted against the bourgeois breakfast, muesli. Pauline Melville was another person I was really glad to have the chance to see as she's not doing standup any more; her Edie character did some 1980s satire that flowed effortlessly into modern equivalents (the Bin Laden-Jesus comparison had bite). Arnold Brown was a treat, and the Greatest Show on Legs were very odd. As well as the famous balloon dance, they had an Anglo-French mime competition that I liked. (Spoiler: The French guy lost to a technicality and a kicking- "He's not miming, that's real pain!") And Neil the Folksinger (Planer again) ended the section. The songs were as bad as they needed to be, and the book of heckle put-downs was fun (*riffles through frantically* "Ah, yes. Ahem. 'Fuck off.'"). I think my favourite line was "Let's all sit in rows and ruin Neil's evening."
Stewart compered the final part. "This is where the system breaks down, as I wasn't a comic in 1981. Never mind." He did a bit of the library routine, and talked about what the alternative comedy scene meant to him ("It was seeing these guys that first made me want to curate an arts event.") Kevin McAleer's Owls slideshow was the only part of the evening where I really was helpless with laughter. Indescribable and amazing. (Clint Eastwood kangaroo!) John Cooper Clarke's poems were as expected, and the mostly-Japanese group Frank Chicken were a suitably bewildering finale, especially when the other acts came back on for the final song; let's just say that they weren't as tight on the actions as the actual backing group. Then Stewart brought Paul Jackson on to get a round of applause, the final final finale was a man with a firework up his bottom, and out we went tired but happy.
Oh yes, I've forgotten the chap balancing bullets on a block of ice in the interval...
TL;DR: alternative comedy eee! Will they ever bring out Boom Boom on DVD?
Liking the new series of Horrible Histories. Yesterday's had "genealogist Sir Francis Guesswork."
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And it turned ou I'd left it at home, not on the bus, so I finished it over the weekend. Fun.
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The day we went there was a moment of pure theatrical magic. You'll recall the play begins with R&G tossing a coin, which keeps coming up heads. After a few tosses the coin came down, landed on its edge, and then rolled in a great circle right round the stage, finally coming to rest front and centre.
Totally straight faces, completely deadpan.
Stephen Frost gets up, walks over, looks down at the coin, looks up at the audience. Grins.
"Heads."
Huge laugh and round of applause. Brilliant.
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